Erich Hartmann (fighter pilot)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Erich Hartmann with his Bf 109 (G-6), October 1943

Erich Alfred "Bubi" Hartmann (* 19th April 1922 in Weissach ; † 20th September 1993 in Weil im Schönbuch ) was a German fighter pilot and officer of the Air Force of the Armed Forces in World War II and in 1956 the Air Force of the Armed Forces . With 352 confirmed kills, he is the most successful fighter pilot in the history of the air war.

Life

Childhood and youth

Hartmann was born the elder of two sons of the doctor Alfred Hartmann and his wife Elisabeth. He spent part of his childhood in China , where his family had migrated for economic reasons. Returned to Germany in 1928, he attended elementary school in Weil im Schönbuch for four years and the grammar school in Böblingen for another four years . After a school year at the National Political Education Institute in Rottweil , he attended grammar school in Korntal for three years , where he passed the Abitur and met his future wife.

Hartmann was already active as a glider pilot in his early youth. His mother was one of the first German female glider pilots. She gave him flight lessons. In 1937 he became a glider instructor in the Flieger-Hitlerjugend . In 1939 he acquired his powered flight license. The Second World War began in September 1939; In 1940, 18-year-old Hartmann volunteered as an officer candidate in the Air Force.

Second World War

From 1940, Hartmann completed his basic aviation training at various Luftwaffe training centers, including the Air Force Training Regiment 10 in Neukuhren and the Air War School in Berlin-Gatow . Hartmann learned to fly the Messerschmitt Bf 109 at the fighter pilot school in Zerbst / Anhalt .

After completing his training, Hartmann was transferred to the 7th Squadron of Jagdgeschwader 52 in October 1942 on the Eastern Front in the Caucasus , where he shot down an aircraft ( Ilyushin Il-2 ) for the first time on November 5, 1942 . He got his nickname "Bubi" from Lieutenant Krupinski because of his youthful appearance. From September 2, 1943, he led the 9th squadron of the association. Since October 1, 1944, he was squadron captain of the 6th squadron of JG 52.

On October 29, 1943, he achieved his 150th victory in the air. He was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross .

In the Red Army he was known as "the black devil" because Hartmann had the tip of his Bf 109 painted with a black, jagged pattern.

His squadron had to be relocated frequently in the course of the withdrawal of the Wehrmacht, 13 of them in the last months of 1943 alone; At the end of March 1944 to Lemberg (Ukraine). On March 2, 1944, he achieved his 202nd victory in the air, for which he was awarded the Oak Leaves for the Knight's Cross.

In April 1944 he was moved to Zarnesti (Romania), from where he also flew missions against bombers and Mustangs . He received the Swords for the Knight's Cross on July 4, 1944. On August 23, 1944, he achieved his 301st aerial victory. This was followed on August 25, 1944 by the awarding of the diamonds to the Knight's Cross. He was the 18th soldier to receive this award .

From February 1945 until the end of the war he was group commander . The Nazi propaganda reported several times in newspaper articles and the German newsreel about Hartmann and his high number of killings. At noon on May 8, 1945, a few hours before the end of the war, he achieved his 352nd aerial victory over Brno when he shot down a Soviet Yakovlev .

On May 8, 1945, he was promoted to major by the squadron commodore of Jagdgeschwader 52, Colonel Hermann Graf . A necessary order from the Air Force Personnel Office was not available, however. In addition, when Hartmann was later taken over into the Bundeswehr, there were differences of opinion between the air force command and the civil administration of the Federal Ministry of Defense .

After the war

Trial and imprisonment

Erich Hartmann (right) as a consultant for the installation of the multi-concrete open-space heating at Zurich-Kloten Airport in 1972
F-86 Saber of Jagdgeschwader 71 of the Luftwaffe of the German Armed Forces with the typical Hartmann nose painting

On May 8, 1945, Hartmann surrendered together with his unit and a group of German refugees from the 90th US Infantry Division. In accordance with the agreements of the Yalta Conference , the US Army delivered the column as a whole to the Red Army . During his imprisonment, Hartmann was arrested on December 24, 1949 and sentenced three days later to 20 years in prison by the military tribunal of the MWD troops in the Ivanovo district . The preliminary investigation into his criminal case was only formal. Hartmann was convicted “for no reason whatsoever of atrocities against Soviet citizens, shooting at military objects and shooting down Soviet planes and thus damaging the Soviet economy. Hartmann protested against the verdict and emphasized that as a military aviator he only took part in the fights with the enemy air forces and had not committed any crimes against the civilian population ”. He protested several times, went on hunger strike , refused to work, and demanded that he be sent back home or shot if he was innocent. He was sentenced to torture several times . In June 1951 he was sentenced to 25 years of forced labor by the military tribunal of the Don military district as an alleged member of an anti-Soviet group whose aim was to free all German prisoners of war from internment and to repatriate them to Germany . After more than ten years of imprisonment, including in camps in Siberia , Hartmann was released along with the last German prisoners of war in 1955 when the ten thousand returned home .

armed forces

Erich Hartmann joined the newly established Bundeswehr in 1956 as part of the rearmament of the Federal Republic and played a key role in the training of young pilots and the formation of new units. Initially, after retraining on US combat aircraft, he was training director of the Air Force 10 weapons school in Oldenburg . The future fighter pilots of the Luftwaffe were trained there. At the air base Ahlhorn presented Hartmann 1959 by Fighter Wing 71 "Richthofen" the first jet fighter -Jagd squadron of the newly established Air Force on; he led this until 1962.

He was on 12 December 1960. Lieutenant Colonel and on July 26, 1967 Colonel promoted.

In the Bundeswehr, despite his high qualification as a pilot, Hartmann was regarded as a difficult subordinate who paid more attention to operational effectiveness than to the peace-based training company and his responsibility as a military "leader, educator and instructor" of his squadron. He was repeatedly criticized for this in assessments, without his objections being accepted.

When the federal government decided to procure the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter , he spoke out against it because he was familiar with the experience of the US Air Force with the F-104. On the occasion of a stay in the USA, he had established close connections with the pilots of the F-104 of a training squadron at the Nellis Air Force Base . In service full of praise for this aircraft, they shared their daily experiences in the aviation clubs in the evenings. Trouble with the engine, problems with the nose landing gear and the regulation of the jet cross-section had already led to a low level of operational readiness there. The head of the F-104 task force, Günther Rall , however, was of the opinion that Hartmann lacked the experience to correctly assess this issue.

When accidents with this type of aircraft increased after its introduction in Germany and the Starfighter affair developed from it, Hartmann took a critical stance towards his superiors and the political leadership. Isolated from the military and deported to posts that were not very attractive to him, Hartmann gave up and retired early in 1970 as a colonel in the Air Force.

Late years

From 1971 to 1974 he worked as a flight instructor at the Hangelar airfield .

In January 1997, more than three years after his death, Erich Hartmann was rehabilitated by the Chief Military Prosecutor of the Russian Federation and exonerated of all allegations made against him. The authority expressly stated that Hartmann had been wrongly tried.

Private

Erich Hartmann and Ursula Paetsch (1924–1996) married in 1944. Their first child, Peter Erich, was born in 1945, but died in 1947. After Erich Hartmann's return to Germany in 1955, a daughter was born in 1957.

Honors

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Erich Hartmann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ^ A b G. Wagenlehner: The Russian efforts ... 1999, p. 36 f.
  2. ↑ a b R. F. Toliver, TJ Constable: Get Hartmann from heaven! 2001.
  3. ↑ RF Toliver, TJ Constable: Get Hartmann from Heaven! 2001, pp. 55, 56.
  4. ↑ RF Toliver, TJ Constable: Get Hartmann from Heaven! 2001, p. 63.
  5. ↑ RF Toliver, TJ Constable: Get Hartmann from Heaven! 2001, p. 75.
  6. ↑ RF Toliver, TJ Constable: Get Hartmann from Heaven! 2001, p. 342.
  7. ↑ RF Toliver, TJ Constable: Get Hartmann from Heaven! 2001, p. 73.
  8. ↑ RF Toliver, TJ Constable: Get Hartmann from Heaven! 2001, p. 88 f.
  9. ↑ RF Toliver, TJ Constable: Get Hartmann from Heaven! 2001, p. 121.
  10. ↑ RF Toliver, TJ Constable: Get Hartmann from Heaven! 2001, pp. 120, 121.
  11. ↑ RF Toliver, TJ Constable: Get Hartmann from Heaven! 2001, pp. 122, 176 ff.
  12. ↑ RF Toliver, TJ Constable: Get Hartmann from Heaven! 2001, p. 163.
  13. ↑ Hubert Wetzel, Joachim Käppner: When freedom came . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, May 8, 2015, p. 12.
  14. ↑ RF Toliver, TJ Constable: Get Hartmann from Heaven! 2001, p. 209.
  15. ↑ G. Wagenlehner: The Russian Efforts ... 1999.
  16. ^ Günther Rall : My flight book . Ed .: Dr. Kurt Braatz. 1st edition. Twenty-nine six publishing house, Moosburg 2004, ISBN 3-9807935-3-2 , pp. 289 .
  17. ↑ G. Wagenlehner: The Russian efforts ... 1999, p. 78 f.
  18. ↑ a b Veit Scherzer : Knight's Cross bearer 1939–1945. The holders of the Iron Cross of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm and armed forces allied with Germany according to the documents of the Federal Archives. 2nd Edition. Scherzers Militaer-Verlag, Ranis / Jena 2007, ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2 , p. 368.
  19. ^ Günter Fraschka : With swords and diamonds: The bearers of the highest German valor award. 10th edition. Universitas Verlag, Wiesbaden / Munich 2002, ISBN 3-8004-1435-X , p. 326.
  20. ↑ J. Nimmergut: German medals and decorations until 1945. Vol. 4, 2001, p. 2441.
  21. ↑ Erich Murawski 1962, The German Wehrmacht Report 1939–1945, from July 1, 1944 to May 9 , 1945 , p. 248.
  22. ↑ Erich Murawski 1962, The German Wehrmacht Report 1939–1945, from July 1, 1944 to May 9 , 1945 , p. 249.
personal data
SURNAME Hartmann, Erich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hartmann, Erich Alfred; Hartmann, Bubi (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German air force officer and fighter pilot
DATE OF BIRTH April 19, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Weissach near Stuttgart
DATE OF DEATH 20th September 1993
Place of death Because in the beautiful book